


Eye of the Storm

by SilverAmoebasquid



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Pre-Canon, it makes me sad because I honestly think they have a good relationship, some good healthy SemiShira for the masses since there's so much negative stuff I see between them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 01:34:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11174265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverAmoebasquid/pseuds/SilverAmoebasquid
Summary: When Semi's position as the main setter for Shiratorizawa is taken from him, he can either learn to move past it or let his underclassman ruin his year.





	Eye of the Storm

When Eita imagined getting his heart broken, he pictured some guy or girl who he probably wasn’t too interested in anymore anyway. He never thought that the sensation of his chest splitting open and tears pricking at the corners of his eyes would hit him while standing on the side of a volleyball court. He felt like someone had let the air out of his lungs and he was slowly deflating.

The view from the side of the court wasn’t one he was used to during practice matches. As the setter, he almost always spent the entire duration of every game on the court, feet planted, ready to call to his teammates and direct their plays and steal victory after victory.

When his number was called, he swapped places with the reserve setter without saying anything. The high-achieving nature of Shiratorizawa’s volleyball club meant that the reserve players were almost just as good as the regulars and it was a competitive environment.

Momentary switches like this were made all the time, Eita assured himself. He watched the second year fit like a puzzle piece into the starting team as gameplay began again. He wouldn’t be on the court for long, Eita repeated in his head. Kenjirou would just be out there for a few plays to throw an unknown variable at the other team and then they’d switch back.

Play after play went down on the court. Shiratorizawa took the set. The call was never made for Eita to reclaim his position and he felt the hairline cracks in his heart start to widen. No one said anything to him as the match finished with a victory and Kenjirou was the one giving and receiving good-natured claps on the back for a job well done. 

Eita narrowed his eyes. He could say something, anything, to someone, anyone. But he didn’t. With the rest of the team talking and laughing behind him, he fled to the locker room as soon as they were all dismissed from practice, claiming a shower stall for himself and letting the water from the spout disguise the tears on his face.

Eita stood under the stream of water for much longer than he usually did. He wasn’t even all that sweaty since he’d spent most of the practice match on the sideline. With the dull roar of water in his ears and pounding on his back, he let his mind wander until he opened his eyes again and realized he couldn’t hear the sounds of his teammates talking and laughing elsewhere in the locker room anymore. Eita shut the shower off and busied himself reassembling his poise and vacating the otherwise deserted locker room.

He headed back up to his dorm room slowly, lacking motivation to move his feet any faster.

When he pushed his door open, the room was not as empty as he’d been expecting.

Kenjirou was seated on the edge of his desk chair talking to Satori who was sprawled across his bed.

As happy as Eita sometimes was about his roommate’s social habits, this was not the moment he wanted to be stuck in the room with Kenjirou.

Kenjirou looked up immediately as Eita entered the room.

“Eita~!” Satori said happily. “Took your time in the shower today, I see.”

Eita took a step back out the door. He really just didn’t want to talk to either of them at that moment. He didn’t care that it would be disrespectful; he just wanted to be alone.

“Semi-san!”

Eita heard Kenjirou’s voice call after him but he was walking too fast to care.

Footsteps echoed down the hall after Eita. “I just want to talk to you!”

“Well, I don’t want to talk to you!”

A hand landed on Eita’s shoulder and he whirled around to shove Kenjirou away.

Kenjirou looked surprised for half a second as he stumbled backward before his expression settled into a scowl. “What’s hitting me going to do for you? There’s nothing you can do about our positions on the court!”

Guilt trickled through Eita’s veins for shoving his underclassman. He was better than that, right? He knew how to get his frustration out without having to resort to physical violence. He could use words to get his point across. But the right words weren’t coming to him.

“I didn’t want to hit you. I didn’t want to talk to you either though, but you were in my room.” Eita slowly began walking further down the hall, not looking back at Kenjirou.

“I’m out of your room now. You can go sit in there and mope if you want to. Permission granted.”

Eita clenched his teeth. He didn’t have the patience for Kenjirou’s sarcasm in this moment either, so he just kept walking. “Just go back to your dorm, Kenjirou. I don’t want to see you again.”

There were no more responses from Kenjirou, only the sounds of his footsteps echoing quieter and quieter like sonar as he walked in the opposite direction.

Eita made his way out of the building and the cool night air felt nice on his skin as the breeze tossed his hair around. He ended up just sitting against the wall while he considered his options.

There wasn’t really an option that he liked. He didn’t want to just accept defeat and spend the rest of his high school volleyball career on the sideline, but there wasn’t a whole lot that he could do to get himself back onto the court as setter.

Now he had probably wrecked his friendship with Kenjirou too, unstable though it had been in the first place.

Honestly, the player change wasn’t something entirely surprising to him either. He’d been caught more than once watching silently as the younger setter warmed up or trained with the rest of the reserve group. It was a sight to behold. The other players seemed to swirl around him as he stood in the center, directing them. And they were always exactly where he needed them to be. Standing on the court, Eita always felt like his fellow players were calling to him, asking for the toss, seeking his permission to score. And when he watched Kenjirou, it was like he called to the players, telling them where to go, asking their permission to use them to score. Even when Eita was directly watching Kenjirou, he found his eyes drifting to the other players all moving around him. It was just the reserve team, but Eita couldn’t help the flashes of panic that flowed through him when he watched. They were almost menacing and he didn’t think he would want to be standing on the other side of the net. He knew that this was just the nature of Shiratorizawa and all of their best players gave off that air of impending doom. And yet, he never saw Kenjirou that way. Because he never really saw Kenjirou at all. He directed silently from the center of the court, without drawing attention to himself, a calm, calculating control tower.

“The eye of the storm,” Eita said out loud, scuffing his shoe against the ground.

As much as Eita still wanted to stand on the court with his best friends, he knew that there was one way for them to win. With Kenjirou on the court, the storm would build and it would tear down everything in its path. No matter how long a building had been standing, the fiercest hurricane could topple it effortlessly.

Eita sighed and got to his feet. He knew he needed to go find Kenjirou and apologize. His harsh words and even harsher hands needed to be atoned for if he was going to move past this. And the last thing he wanted to do was wallow in his own misery until he graduated. Eita also knew that he’d made Kenjirou mad and an angry Kenjirou was not something he wanted to deal with while his own emotions were so volatile.

He walked, a little taller, a little more confidently, back to the gymnasium. He would get the rest of his frustration out, then he would go to bed, then he would talk to Kenjirou in the morning.

Eita served up against the wall, letting the repetitive movement ease his senses. The deeper the rhythm he fell into, the easier it was to hit accurately and precisely.

Before he knew it, an hour had passed and he was sweaty again and he ducked into the locker room once again, taking a much quicker shower than before, and heading back up to his dorm.

Satori was still awake, though that wasn’t much of a surprise and Eita flashed him a quick smile before climbing into bed and passing out almost immediately.

 

A sort of electricity filled the air in the gymnasium the next afternoon. Eita watched Kenjirou march over to the rest of the regulars to warm up as if he had always been a part of the group. Eita almost smiled to himself. When he had first joined the regular team, he had been hesitant to feel included. He hadn’t wanted to look entitled or too cocky. Kenjirou stood straight and looked people in the eye and radiated confidence. He was built to be a part of this group.

The only thing that distracted Eita from watching the new starting setter was his own work. He had a bit of autonomy for a while as everyone worked by themselves or in small groups on things they needed to improve on individually.

Eita lost himself in serving again. Now he actually had a full court and a net to serve across in contrast to his session with the wall the previous night. And this felt even better. The smack as the ball hit the court sent a hot rush of satisfaction through Eita’s body and he reached for another ball to do it again.

He stopped only in the moments when something from the other court caught his eye and he watched the starting team, the team that used to be his, in the middle of a drill or practice scrimmage. 

They whipped and whirled around the court, exchanging shouts and directions quickly as they made play after play. There was an air of uncertainty that hung like fog over them, but it would lift with time as they got used to their new setter. Negating that, they seemed even stronger than before. Eita had never watched his team from the sidelines while he was playing so he couldn’t really compare, but what lay before him took his breath away.

Kenjirou seemed to fit into the group seamlessly. He didn’t stick out, but faded into the background and let the team — _ his  _ team— work around him because they were all exactly where he needed them to be.

Eita smiled and went back to serving and practicing with the rest of the club.

 

When Eita stepped into the shower at the end of practice and allowed his mind to wander from the court for the first time all afternoon, he realized quickly just how sore he was. Serving wasn’t a new activity for any of them, but he’d never spent so much time repeating that same motion over and over. It felt good though. He stretched his arms out in front of him and felt the soft pull through his muscles. He felt good, he realized, leisurely showering. This whole afternoon had felt oddly good, contrary to what he’d been expecting based off yesterday’s events.

The sensation of freedom settled over Eita’s shoulders when he served. He didn’t have to worry about his teammates or his opponents, just the ball and the court and himself. And it was a good feeling. He hadn’t stopped for long enough to even contemplate still being mad at Kenjirou for taking his spot. He didn’t want to either. He’d rather keep chasing this new server’s high he’d discovered.

His head still in that relaxed cloud, Eita stepped back out of the shower and dressed quickly. His shower, though not as long as the one he’d taken the previous night, was still longer than most and the locker room was deserted again. Almost.

Kenjirou sat on a wooden bench in the center of the room, head ducked, a towel over his hair.

Eita approached him slowly, noting the almost imperceptible movement of his chest with every breath and the way droplets of water dripped from the ends of his hair and soaked through the shoulders of his clean, white t-shirt.

“You okay?” Eita asked quietly.

Kenjirou nodded slightly without looking up. “Yeah. Just tired.”

Eita smiled and sat down next to him. “Hard work being a starting member, isn’t it.”

“New level of intensity,” Kenjirou agreed. “You felt it too today.”

“Hm?” Eita looked over in confusion.

“You’re sore too.” Kenjirou let the towel drape around his shoulders as he looked up at Eita. “I saw you. Serving.”

“Oh.” Eita looked away. He hadn’t realized that Kenjirou had been watching him just as much as he had been keeping an eye on the younger setter that day. “Yeah, I’m sore too.”

“Are you going to try to be a pinch server?”

“I don’t know yet. Serving makes me feel free, I’m noticing. If I get good enough I might try to get put on the court. Though I might just be happy being your backup setter.”

“You’re not mad anymore?”

“Nah. Sorry for shoving you last night. It was the heat of the moment and I lost control. I apologize.”

Kenjirou nodded his acceptance. “I apologize for trying to talk to you when I should have given you space.”

“You’re forgiven. I just needed some time to think I guess. And I’ve thought. And I figured I could either be immature and keep sulking about things I can’t change or I could move past it. So I’m not mad anymore.”

“I’m glad for that. I didn’t want you to be my enemy, even though I probably deserve that for stealing your spot.”

“You didn’t steal anything from me,” Eita said softly, picking up on Kenjirou’s troubled tone of voice. “This is how the game is played and the better setter will be the one standing on the court.”

“Yeah, but—”

“For the record, I love watching you play.”

Kenjirou blinked in surprise.

Eita grinned. “I was thinking about that last night and today. It’s really enjoyable watching you though. Whether it was with the reserve team or with the regular team, you have really good control over the court. The team is in good hands.”

Kenjirou blushed slightly for an instant before he regained his composure. “I’m just doing what I normally do.”

“I know. And what you do is amazing. You’re... a little unconventional sometimes and at a glance, your style is a little juvenile—”

“Hey!”

Eita smirked. “I said ‘at a glance.’ When you really look, your style is perfect for this team. You make them even more powerful and menacing than I ever could. I don’t know how to say what I’m thinking without it sounding weird, but you’re, like, a calm point on the court that, like, every play originates from and you don’t even stand out that much, but, like, you make everyone else seem, like, bigger and badder than they are.”

Kenjirou narrowed his eyes. “Stop saying ‘like’ every other word. I’m not understanding what you’re trying to say to me.”

Eita sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “You’re the eye of the storm, Kenjirou. Everything and everyone else revolves around you and no one is going to be able to beat us when we’re using your strength. You’re going to make a big impact out there.”

Kenjirou smiled slightly. “No, I’m not going to make a big impact. You said it yourself; you barely even notice me.”

“T-that’s not what I meant! You’re a great setter, Kenjirou! You just...”

“Semi-san, that’s what I’m going for. I want to be the setter who stands out the least. It’s like you said. I’m the eye of the storm. No one pays attention to the eye because they’re too busy running away from the rest of the storm. That’s what I want.”

Eita studied Kenjirou’s expression. He looked more relaxed than he had in the past two days. Eita suspected he was relieved that someone was understanding the message he was trying to get across through his playing style. Well, Eita was more than willing to understand it then, if that was what Kenjirou was looking for. Eita smiled. “You’re going to be great at it then.”

Kenjirou smiled too and looked absently at the opposite wall. “Thank you. I’m going to be the setter who stands out the least; brilliant, yet reserved; the eye of the storm. And that’s how I’m going to lead us to victory.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading; I hope you have enjoyed! I was very excited to write some SemiShira and try something from Semi's perspective where I normally might have written from Shirabu's POV. This is inspired by and dedicated to my group chat that I roleplay with because a lot of us got into a yelling match about how good Eita and Kenjirou are and how their relationship is so often turned negative because of their situation so I wanted to flip that around and present how I picture their friendship, even through hard times!


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